The James River girls are looking to pick up their first basketball win in the Three Rivers District when the Knights travel to Alleghany tonight, then host Radford in Springwood Friday. River is 0-5 in the district after dropping two Three Rivers games in the past week.
Last Thursday in Pearisburg the girls fell to Giles, 67-21. The River team was battling the flu as well as the Spartans in this one.
“We had several girls who were coming off the flu and also the three days before the game we only had five or six girls at practice because of the flu,” said coach E.D .Schechterly. “When you have only a few healthy players it’s hard to play well. I have to give our girls credit that they never gave up and they knew that we would be running them in and out every few minutes so they wouldn’t get worn out so fast.”
River had a bad shooting night, hitting 23 percent from the floor and 50 percent from the free throw line. They also had 16 turnovers. Olivia Thacker had six points for River and Lacey Lucado had five. Kaliyah Davis had seven rebounds.
On Monday the girls played at Glenvar in another district game and fell behind early, falling 50-10.
“I don’t think we were ready to play,” said Schechterly. “We were in slow motion getting up and down the court.”
Madison Brogan had eight points and Brooke Vanderveer had the other two. River shot just 10 percent from the floor and 44 percent from the line.
“With numbers like that you don’t win basketball games,” said Schechterly. “Now we have to get our heads right and focus on playing Alleghany tonight and Radford at home on Friday.”
